


Adagio

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Broket Hall, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7996012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the meeting at Brocket Hall, Lord Melbourne watches the rooks and contemplates his life and the people, both past and present in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adagio

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this youtube video 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU4BuWT-b9I

Adagio

He always returned for the rooks.

 

They seemed to be the one constant in the consistently shifting world that he had made his home in.

 

 The one memory of his dearest Caroline that was still, after all these years, not tarnished by the malicious sting of gossip.

 

The dappled sunlight catches through the shower of falling leaves; the first hints of golden brown crinkling at their tips.

 

Augustus had loved the leaves.

 

Augustus; that sweet, pale faced boy with the deep, dark eyes that trusted and loved everything with the incorruptible innocence of childhood had loved to hold his hand and tramp towards the ruined tower where the rooks made their nest year on year.

 

Augustus, whose thin fingers had always trembled with delight as they crossed the path and the looming, red brick ruin finally came into view.

 

Augustus, whose last moments had been ones of an agony that even now, he cannot imagine, has forced himself to forget.

 

‘ _Papa! Papa… Please… Make it stop…’_

_The stark, starched sheets of the nursery bed crumpled with sweat as his only son thrashed through a nightmare that only he could see._

_The sharp salt of blood that had bloomed over his lips as he knelt to try and comfort the child and yet knew that he was past comforting now; that the pale, sweaty face would forever be still as at last, at long last, the convulsions finally stopped._

 

Was he a monster for feeling relieved that he could no longer hear his son’s cries?

 

Even now he is not so sure.

 

The harsh, guttural cries of the rooks bring him back.

 

Bring him back to the crisp chill of the Autumn wind, to the dappled light flickering through the trees, to the rooks, to the thought of Caroline…

 

_‘If I had just spent more time watching the rooks, my wife would have felt more attended to…’_

But after Augustus’s death it had been impossible.

 

Brocket Hall was filled with too many memories, too many ghosts, too many echoes of his son’s footsteps as he raced his nurse through the hall towards the front door, crowing in delight that his papa was home from London and so he had escaped like a coward, unable; unwilling to face the memories.

 

London had been everything Brocket Hall was not and yet with the presence of Victoria, of his monarch, he is completely lost within the capital.

 

Lost and looking to her for guidance, when for so long it has been the opposite.

 

A crinkle and snap of the leaves makes him turn, a sudden reproach at this sanctuary being discovered rising before he can stop it.

 

‘Lord M?’’

 

The veil she wears does little to conceal her; he knows that he would know her anywhere and yet…

 

And yet this homecoming was not akin to the ones he can hear being joyfully proclaimed across the rain scattered skies above their heads.

 

This homecoming was not the same because he and his Monarch are not rooks.

 

 That this homecoming makes plain that after all these years and all the love he feels for her; he is still bound to the memory of Caroline and Augustus; bound to the memories that continue to haunt Brocket Hall and will continue to haunt it long after they have left the earth for good.

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy xxx


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